Shein finally got its IPO done after years of false starts. Now comes the interesting part: figuring out what to do with the money. According to a Reuters analysis published Friday, the answer is shopping — the company is sitting on $15 billion in cash, plus another $1.74 billion from the listing, and is gearing up to buy fast-fashion brands to restart its growth.
Because the growth, frankly, needs restarting.
From 8% to 1.1%
Shein grew 8% in 2025. In the first quarter of 2026, growth was 1.1%. That's not a slowdown, that's a wall — and a big part of it is Washington's removal of the "de minimis" exemption that used to let small parcels enter the US duty-free. Cheap direct-from-factory shipping was the heart of Shein's price advantage with American shoppers, and it's gone.
So Shein is reaching for the classic move of a giant that stopped growing: acquire.
Why Everlane, of all brands
The first target is already in the prospectus: Everlane, the US basics label, for $80 million. Reuters describes it as a dry run. The plan is to buy brands at different price points and bolt them onto Shein's supply chain — the software-driven system that tells factories to crank out more of whatever's selling and kill whatever isn't, keeping inventory near zero. Shein did a version of this once before, picking up Britain's Missguided in 2023.
"Shein at its core is one of the most efficient supply chains ever built," Consumer Edge research chief Michael Gunther told Reuters. That's the pitch to any struggling brand: plug in, and your unit economics transform.
But here's the wrinkle. Everlane's whole identity is slow, ethical, sustainable basics — roughly the opposite of what Shein's name evokes. When word of the deal leaked in May, Everlane's own customers revolted on social media. Shein insists the brand's leadership and standards won't change. Whether loyalists believe that is another matter, and GlobalData's apparel analysts count the reputational clash as a real hurdle.
Renting out the machine
The other half of the plan doesn't involve buying anyone. Shein told Reuters it wants more brands in its "Xcelerator" program, which essentially rents out the Shein machine — manufacturing network, warehouses, logistics, global storefront — to outside labels for a fee.
That services business is growing much faster than Shein's own product sales. It's also much smaller. Momentum Works CEO Jianggan Li summed up the tension: marketplace and services give Shein another engine, but they can't substitute for fixing the core business.
The test ahead
Watch what happens to Everlane. If Shein can own it without hollowing it out, a string of similar deals across price tiers will follow, and Shein starts looking less like a brand and more like a platform that happens to sell clothes. If Everlane's customers bail, the lesson will be an old one: you can manufacture almost anything at speed except trust.
Image: Mathias Reding, via Pexels
